


a primer of candor and other virtues

by oh_simone



Series: girl, unobserved [2]
Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Action, F/M, Future Fic, Genderswap, Intrigue, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 11:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/965159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oh_simone/pseuds/oh_simone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Change is rarely painless, Yamamoto Takako finds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a primer of candor and other virtues

**Author's Note:**

> Picks up directly where 'A history of patience...' leaves off.

Narita airport is crowded and loud, the noise bouncing and reverberating off the high ceilings and walls. It’s hectic, tiresome, overwhelming, and the terminal is a nightmare made worse by the utter silence between them. Yamamoto hasn’t spoken to Gokudera since she’d asked him to pass the sports pages on the plane. Since leaving Italy, really the end of the Fiori affair, Gokudera has been curt and cagey, Yamamoto stubbornly polite. If they have to spend another second together, she’s positive she’ll scream. It’s why she walks a little faster as they near the exit.  
  
Tsuna, Kyoko, and Haru are waiting in the arrival hall with an outrageous cardboard sign decorated in pink glitter, stickers of hearts and kissy lips stuck all over.   
  
“ _Boss_ ,” Gokudera utters from behind her, and it’s the first sound with any emotion Yamamoto’s heard him say in days. Yamamoto shoves down a reflexive swell of jealously and walks a little faster towards their friends.   
  
“How was the trip?” Tsuna asks with a smile, shaking their hands and taking Yamamoto’s luggage courteously.   
  
“Long,” Yamamoto laughs giddily, and swoops in to greet him, Italianate. Before Gokudera can splutter about inappropriateness or Tsuna’s face go up in flames, she greets Kyoko, then Haru the same way.   
  
“ _Baci_!” Haru mock swoons, starry eyed. “Oh, I wish I’d gone with you!”  
  
“Y-Yamamoto!” Tsuna stutters, and Kyoko laughs.  
  
“Tell me about Italy, Takako,” she says, pressing her arm.   
  
“Yes, yes, eeeeverything,” Haru wheedles, and tosses an unimpressed look over her shoulder at the two men. “We can take my car, and let the boys get their own cab.”  
  
“Sounds like fun,” Yamamoto laughs, relief bubbling up. “And we can break out the chocolate I bought.” She doesn’t look back, just follows her friends to the car park.  
  
  
  
Yamamoto takes exactly two days off—the first one spent commiserating with Haru and Kyoko over their hangovers, and the second with her dad, sharpening his knives and helping out at the shop. Her dad shoots her a lot of concerned looks throughout the day, but doesn’t say anything, and she’s grateful and guilty all at once. Before she leaves, she winds the beautiful Italian silk tie she’d bought for him around his neck and promises him she’s okay. He just smiles and pats her cheek, tells her to ‘ganbare’ before shooing her home.  
  
The first day back at HQ, she hides out in her office, sorting through a month’s worth of mail, and instead of going to nag Gokudera, actually starts her write up on the Fiori affair. By the second paragraph (“Juliette kind of went a little nuts and shot up her boy because I guess she wanted some respect, but she couldn’t find the case of diamonds he had so she waited until Cato grabbed them before planning to steal them back. Haha it was pretty complicated I guess.”), solitaire’s open on her computer, and she’s bouncing a tennis ball she just found in her desk off the opposite wall. When Ryohei ducks in, he narrowly misses being brained by it. Fortunately, he’s got the reflexes of an athlete and punches the ball out of the air.   
  
“Oh hey, nice,” Yamamoto laughs, scooting out of her chair to greet him.   
  
“That was extremely welcoming,” he grins. “I’ll bet you do that for all the boys.”  
  
“If only,” she retorts genially and pops open her distinguished looking cabinet to reveal a mini fridge stocked with beer. He catches the can she tosses to him easily and sits on her desk, raising it to clink with hers ceremoniously before cracking the tab open.   
  
“I just read Gokudera’s extremely detailed report,” he comments after they’ve taken the first sip. “Sounds like an extremely crazy time.”  
  
“You could say that,” she agrees. “Murder, backstabbing, stolen jewels…” she straightens brightly. “It’s like Kindaichi manga!”  
  
“I’m extremely envious,” Ryohei groans. “I spent most of the month arranging for the repainting of the gym.” He pauses and reaches into his suit and extracts a file. “By the way, Gokudera asked me to hand this off to you. Is anything going on?”  
  
Yamamoto nearly swallows her beer the wrong way trying to prove that nothing is going on. “Thanks. Why do you say?”  
  
He gives her a funny look. “His office is like, across from yours. Mine is down the hall. A messenger isn’t extremely needed.”  
  
“Hm,” Yamamoto says distractedly as she flips through the file. Inside are carefully typed notes, of every torturous detail that Gokudera never told her in Italy. She skims over Juliette’s complete travel itineraries from the past five years, Felice Fiori and Cato Mosca’s ongoing fight about diamond payments pulled from wiretapped emails, the transcript of Cato Mosca’s interview with the police right after he showed up at the crime scene. There’s a black-and-white scan of an old photograph, a young Felice Fiori, twenty-five at most. He’s in a linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up and collar unbuttoned, legs crossed and leaning against an old crumbling wall, a thin cigarette hanging from his lip. His arm rests around the shoulders of a ten year old boy who’s in shorts and sandals. And though their skin color is shades apart, they both have the exact same grin and tilt to their head. The second half of the file is extensive notes on Juliette’s current whereabouts (somewhere in Eastern Europe, hiding) and her activities (tentative negotiations with her own family, who are none too happy with her failure to steal the diamonds), as well as Cato Mosca’s (dismantling Fiori’s diamond networks, half purposefully, half through negligence, though there are signs of another power attempting to wrest control from him). Yamamoto slams the folder closed and tosses it behind her.   
  
“He didn’t do it himself,” she tells Ryohei sweetly, “because he might have left this room on a stretcher.”  
  
“Oh, extreme, a little violent,” Ryohei comments, raising his eyebrows. “That’s unexpected; should I bite the bullet and ask why?”  
  
Suddenly feeling crappy, she rubs at her temples and shrugs. “We had an… argument,” she tells him awkwardly. “He was keeping important details from me. For, I don’t know. My protection.” Yamamoto barely keeps from sneering.  
  
“I see,” Ryohei says slowly, expression clearly saying he doesn’t. “Do you need me to hold him down while you give him the ol’ one-two?” He acts out the movements lightly.  
  
Chuckling, Yamamoto shakes her head and knocks shoulders with him. “Thanks, but I’m a big girl. I can handle him.”  
  
“I know you are,” he agrees. “And if he doesn’t, then he’s even a bigger idiot than I’d thought.” As he pushes off the table and waves farewell, Yamamoto thinks maybe Ryohei gets it a little after all.  
  
  
  
It’s clear Tsuna is not happy about the sudden distance between his two closest guardians. Yamamoto wants to apologize, but she isn’t even sure what she should be sorry for, except that Gokudera won’t meet her eyes anymore, and she doesn’t feel like smiling much. In fact, their productivity goes up four percent, Giannini informs them at the next bi-annual review. There’s no more distracting banter and good-natured ribbing, no sudden spontaneous jaunts to the closest _konbini_ for chocolate and oden, just quiet, professional silence. But it’s on her downtime that Yamamoto comes up against the big stumbling block—she’s used to grabbing a plate of sushi and some shitty movie from the DVD rental and invading Gokudera’s apartment in the evenings, or badgering him into racing her down the Tokyo coastline in the Vongola’s company sports cars. With the yawning absence that is now her evenings, she finally has time to respond to her old high school friends’ demands of meeting for dinner.  
  
Which, she supposes, is how she accidentally ends up at a _goukon_.  
  
“ _Hajimemashite_ ,” the guy in front of her mutters. He looks kind of miserable, and Yamamoto sympathizes with him. Clearly, both of them are the victims of peer pressure. “I’m Ono Ryuuya.”  
  
“Yamamoto Takako,” she replies with a chuckle. “Nice to meet you.”  
  
All around her, the table is rowdy and crowded, the conversations interspersed with loud bursts of laughter. She’s content with sitting back and eating her dinner, which is actually quite good, and letting the good cheer wash over her. It’s so different from the solemnities she deals with as part of the famiglia every day; she kind of wonders what would she be like, had she never met Tsuna, or Gokudera.  
  
The thought of her partner makes her cringe, and she hastily takes a bite of chicken. Across from her, Ono gives her a wary look.   
  
“You okay?” he asks reluctantly. She looks up, startled that he’d spoken again.  
  
“Awesome,” she answers. “Just haven’t been to one of these in a really, really long time,” she finishes with a wry chuckle. He gives her a dry grin.   
  
“Tell me about it. Were you dating someone?” he asks. “Sorry, is that a rude question?”  
  
“Not at all,” she assures. “And no, not really. Mostly just work, and well. There was someone, but we weren’t really dating. Just… work, I guess! I travel a lot,” she laughs.  
  
He looks as if he knows that’s not the full story but shrugs and tops up her beer, and she hastily returns the favor. “That’s a good a reason,” he acknowledges. “Me, my girlfriend just dumped me, after three years. These idiots think that coming out here will magically make it all work out,” he grouses, but his temper seems to be lightening, now that he’s found someone to commiserate with. “So, what exactly do you do?”  
  
“Private consulting,” she cheerfully recites. “I’m with a security firm, of sorts. It’s very dramatic. But I used to play baseball.”  
  
“Never would have expected it, what with this being the high school baseball team,” Ryuuya laughs, and Yamamoto likes the way he reveals his teeth when he grins, so she smiles back and leans in closer.  
  
  
  
Ryuuya doesn’t have a car; he’s a graduate student at Tokyo University studying history, and while he’s passionate about his subject, it’s one that leaves him little financial return. He does own a bicycle though, and the first time he picks up Yamamoto for a date by bicycle, she leans against the railing of her apartment and laughs until she cries, ignoring his squawks of mock offense. In spite of the crappy transportation, or maybe because of it, Yamamoto has fun for the first time in awhile. He rides down to the port, Yamamoto balancing a basket of picnic food in her lap while sitting side-saddle on the pillion behind. It’s neither fast like a sports car, nor exhilarating like Squalo’s Ducati, but it’s fun, with Ryuuya shouting dry commentary on the places they whiz by, or funny things that happened to him over the week. They spread out on the grassy slope that overlooks the bridge over the mouth of the harbor and split a bento she’d packed the night before.  
  
“Three,” Ryuuya tells her with a grin as they sit cross legged on the blanket he’d brought. “Two older, one younger.”  
  
“Enough to spare,” Yamamoto agrees with a laugh. “It must have been chaotic.”  
  
“Yeah, well,” Ryuuya smiles and scratches his chin. “My oldest brother ran away from home and joined a motorcycle gang when I was twelve, and the rest of us were too scared of breaking our parents to incite much chaos after that.”  
  
“Oh, which gang?” Yamamoto perks up.   
  
He stares at her with some confusion, but answers readily enough. “The Red Devils, on the east side-”  
  
Yamamoto claps her hands in delight. “Right! Their sentoshi is Miyagi O, and they all have that ugly cartoon on their sleeves.” She should know. She has an honorary _tokko-fuku_ hanging in her closet from them, and Miyagi personally owes her a drink, a new pair of rainboots, and a favor, not necessarily in that order.  
  
“Should I not ask?” Ryuuya says wonderingly with not a bit of apprehension.   
  
“When you work in security,” she replies blithely, “you tend to get around the neighborhood.”  
  
“Your job sounds entirely too dangerous to an academic like me,” he admits, and grins. “It ended up too exciting for Mamoru too. He’s in accounting now.”  
  
“Not many people are in my line of work,” Yamamoto says agreeably. “It’s not easy sometimes; I’ve been at it almost ten years, and still you face relentless judgment and pressure, day after day.”  
  
“Huh,” Ryuuya hmms, looking at her curiously. “And you won’t quit?”  
  
The sun is settling into radiating the midday heat and she takes a moment to shrug off her light cardigan before answering. “It’s not the kind of job you just leave,” she tells him at last, with a crooked smile. “And as frustrating as it gets, I can’t think of anything else I’d do.”  
  
He nods and, seeing her reluctance on the subject, easily turns the conversation to lighter topics.  
  
For the rest of the afternoon, Yamamoto never thinks once about Gokudera. Ryuuya has her laughing genuinely, and makes her feel wanted. And if he doesn’t exactly set her heart pounding, well, at least she doesn’t have to worry about arrhythmia.  
  
  
  
Even with the veritable iron curtain between them, Gokudera still seems to know everything she’s up to. He’s waiting for her at their usual evening conference with the other guardians, except that Tsuna and Ryohei are both out of town on a social call, Lambo is at school, and neither Hibari nor Mukuro (and by extension, Chrome) could be bothered to show up. More often than not, it’s two or three of them, having coffee and pastries and indulging in Mafia gossip. This afternoon, Gokudera is going over reports in his bold, red pen. At her seat, there is a bland manila file. As she flips it open, she sees a full profile of Ryuuya, from his tax records and transcripts to a list of his email contacts. Very carefully, Yamamoto does not read any more of it, and pushes it away. Only then does she look at Gokudera, who is not looking at her.   
  
“And what do I do with this?” she asks.   
  
He shrugs. “Whatever you want,” he grunts. She cocks her head at him.   
  
“Does it bother you that I’m dating him?” she asks, carefully neutral. He finally looks at her, a spark of belligerence in his green eyes, his mouth thin and annoyed.  
  
“It doesn’t matter how I feel, does it?” he replies curtly. “I am not your keeper. That is a standard profile,” he gestures with only the faintest of sneers. “What you do with it is your decision.”  
  
 _Oh boy_ , Yamamoto sighs tiredly as she shuffles the file to the bottom of her pile. Gokudera sure knew how to make a girl feel special.   
  
Gokudera pushes his marked up report to her, and she picks at it, curiously, then with more interest as she realizes it’s a report from one of their contacts in the Czech Republic. Juliette has gone back to using her maiden name, a ploy, some suspect, to try and regain her family’s good graces once again.   
  
“Il Bisturi has her holed up in Prague,” Gokudera summarizes for her. “He’s begun negotiating with the Corbones on her behalf just this past week.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Yamamoto frowns. “Are they bringing her back?”  
  
“Not yet. But it won’t be long before they do. More importantly, they’re negotiating for something,” Gokudera muses, tapping the report. “She’s going to be back sooner or later, but it’s coming at a price, somewhere.”  
  
“The diamonds,” she supplies. “They can’t just overlook their losses.”  
  
“Right,” Gokudera sits up suddenly and glances at the clock. “But they’re going to realize that the only way to recoup them is to bring her in. If there’s anyone capable of taking over Fiori’s operation, it’ll be her.”  
  
“Even with Mosca compromising of half the operation?” Yamamoto points out dubiously. “He’s never going to work with them, and the Ciambino won’t readily turn on one of their own either.”  
  
“But Mortenson, he’s the clincher,” Gokudera points out, gathering his things. “He’s had extensive access to Mosca’s operation as a major sponsor, and chances are, he’s been making provisions to privatize the operations further.” He stands then, and glances at her impatiently. “Well? Are you coming?”  
  
“Actually,” she replies, still seated, feeling irrationally guilty. “I’m meeting Ryuuya in an hour.”  
  
For a moment, Gokudera’s expression blanks before it shutters down into the same, stony expression he’s shown for the past two months. “Right,” he says shortly, opening the door. “Fine.”  
  
Yamamoto resolutely doesn’t give in to the urge to cancel on her boyfriend, not like she would have half a year ago. Instead, she gathers her things and legs it out of HQ so she can squeeze in a change of clothes before her date.  
  
  
  
Haru likes Ryuuya, in that whenever they meet, they end up arguing hotly about some obscure theory of politics. In one memorable instance, Haru accuses him of being an irreverent and shameless socialist while sitting in a tacky cowboy themed bar.  
  
“On the contrary,” Ryuuya replies just as snidely. “I socialize with great solemnity and humility.”  
  
“I hate him,” Haru groans to Yamamoto, flinging her arms around her neck. “Oh god, where do you find these guys?”  
  
“You have a history of dating irreverent, shameless socialists?” Ryuuya asks, jokingly, and Haru seizes the opportunity to inform him of Yamamoto’s dating history.   
  
“Haru,” Yamamoto says warningly. “This is uncomfortable.”  
  
“Oh, sorry,” she says blithely, retrieving her arms and continuing her history. Yamamoto is a little appalled and amused to see Ryuuya’s look of dubious interest as Haru regales him about junior-year Ken, baseball player Minoru, bartender Uchi, even a watered down version of Squalo. “Of course, none of them hold a single match to Goku- _ow_!” Haru glares at Yamamoto and rubs the spot where her friend had kicked her under the table.   
  
“Who?” Ryuuya asks, morbidly curious.  
  
“Haru,” Yamamoto laughs sweetly. “I think you’ve had too much to drink.”  
  
“Oh, now I know this’ll be good,” Ryuuya grumbles, sighs, and cracks his neck before folding his hands before him and adopting a grim look. “Alright. Go on. Tell me who this guy is. I can handle it.”  
  
Before Yamamoto can stop her, Haru lunges forth eagerly. “Gokudera,” she pronounces with relish, “is the boy Takako’s been in love with since middle school.”  
  
“We’re not friends anymore,” Yammaoto declares, and pushes out of the booth. At the bar, she orders a shot of vodka, and throws it back in one smooth motion. She’s about to order another when someone coughs at her side. Ryuuya slides in next to her, giving her a wary look. “…Sorry,” she smiles wanly. “Haru tends to overshare when she has too much.”  
  
He shrugs sympathetically. “Sore spot?”  
  
Yamamoto laughs bitterly and shakes her head. “Yup.”   
  
Ryuuya sighs a little, buys her an outrageously girly drink, and nudges her off the stool. “Come on,” he suggests. “We’ll take this back to Haru and then we’ll drown my jealousy with a bucket of garlic fries and the fact that you’re sitting next to me, and not him, how’s that?”  
  
After a moment, Yamamoto huffs and turns to him with a small smile. Ryuuya is not especially handsome or well-dressed. He’s kind of myopic, is actually an inch shorter than her, and his sense of humor wanders towards the caustically sarcastic. But he’s here now, and he treats her well, and he makes her happy when they’re together. She takes his hand.  
  
  
  
  
Everyone notices; Chrome notes gently that she seems happier lately while they’re gathering for a meeting, and Yamamoto just grins widely, tucking her phone away.   
  
“My boyfriend just got his research grant,” she says happily. “This means we’re going down to Atami for a celebratory weekend.”  
  
“And if he hadn’t gotten it?” Chrome asks with a lopsided smile. Yamamoto leans in conspiratorially.  
  
“Consolatory weekend,” she stage whispers. “But the plans are the same.”  
  
They giggle together, drawing the perplexed but indulgent look of Tsuna. Yamamoto’s laughter dies abruptly though, when she catches Gokudera’s stony gaze fastened on her. His expression is completely unreadable, which is its own little shock after years of practically being mind-melded, and he looks away after a pause. Yamamoto takes a little breath after that and turns her attention to the front, suddenly not in any mood for humor.   
  
  
  
Ryuuya doesn’t know what she does for a living, of course. He has no idea his girlfriend can kill him with nothing more than a paperclip and a stapler, that she has used this method before, to great effect. He’s a liberal activist, and in fact, she’s had to sit through his drunken railings against corruption in the government and yakuza families. He is thoroughly deriding of biker and youth gangs, having seen his own brother come out of them with the scars to match. She’s pretty sure if he knew about her other life, the relationship would end with spectacular haste. That said, Ryuuya knows her character, and likes her, and doesn’t take her for granted. It’s why when he proposes they move in together, she doesn’t just laugh him out of bed like she has in previous situations.   
  
“I’ve got to think about it,” she replies instead. “It’s… I like what we have now,” she tries again.   
  
“Me too,” he admits, and shrugs, trying to seem cool about it. “Just thought it’s a valid suggestion, otherwise between your job and my dissertation, we’ll never see each other.”  
  
Yamamoto smiles at him, leans forward to kiss the tip of his nose fondly. “You’re such a considerate man,” she says. “I promise I’ll think about it.”  
  
  
  
Gokudera is waiting for her the next morning when she returns to her apartment for a change of clothes. He’s on the couch, already fully dressed, and regarding her with sharp green eyes. Yamamoto shakes off her surprise and tucks her gun back into her purse, comes inside and latches the door behind her.  
  
“You’re making a mistake,” he says flatly.  
  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tells him lightly, and disappears into her bedroom to change.   
  
“Don’t play stupid,” he scoffs. “Your boyfriend. He wants to move in with you.”  
  
“Are you bugging me?” Yamamoto demands. He just gives her a withering look. “No, never mind. You got Shamal to bug me?”  
  
Gokudera scoffs. “There was no stalking of any kind,” he snaps irritably. “You and that boy are just predictable.”  
  
“Technically, we want to find a new place altogether,” she corrects, deliberately switching topics. “I don’t see how that’s any concern of yours.” She rustles through her closet, forcing a light-hearted hum as she plucks out a gray silk shirt and a dark, pin-striped skirt. “If it’s dedication to my job you’re worried about-”  
  
“That’s not the point. He’s a civilian, Yamamoto.” Her partner’s voice comes by closely; she knows he’s waiting at the doorway. “You’ll never be able to tell him about all this, and he won’t be satisfied with not knowing.”  
  
Her fingers still on the buttons of her shirt before continuing their task quickly and jerkily. “It’s not your business, Gokudera,” she manages calmly. When she turns around, he’s leaning against the doorjamb, a faint scowl on his face. She smiles blandly. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it in hand. This won’t affect my skills, or my time commitments. And he understands why I can’t share information, for now. When it gets to be an issue, I can end it.”  
  
She pats his shoulder companionably as she walks by, but he doesn’t move.  
  
“He’s not worth the time,” he growls, turning to follow her into the kitchen.  
Yamamoto bristles, but shrugs it off. “You don’t even know him,” she reproaches laughingly, then brightens. “Maybe I can introduce you guys. He’s very-”  
  
“He’s no good, Yamamoto,” Gokudera cuts in. His expression is unreadable. “Let him go.”  
  
Very calmly, Yamamoto waits until she gets the coffeemaker going before turning around and folding her arms. “And what makes you think I should listen to you?”  
  
“Because you know it’s true,” he states flatly. “He’ll never accept this part of you. He’s too caught in his own limited ivory tower to see what we do with an impartial mind.”  
  
“I don’t see our world as particularly nice either,” she points out.  
  
“And,” Gokudera continues, ignoring her comment, “He’ll never understand you like I do. It’s unfair to him, the way you treat him. He’ll never know the danger he’s in, being with you. Even that loud-mouthed Varia bastard is a better choice than he is.”  
  
Yamamoto stares at him for a silent pause before turning around and fetching a mug from the drying rack. She pours herself a cup of coffee, not bothering to offer any to him, and tries to tamp down the boiling emotions and the traitorous thudding of her heart in her ribs. Her skin prickles and tingles with apprehension.  
  
“You have a lot of nerve, Hayato,” she tells him calmly when she trusts her voice not to shake, picking up the cream from the refrigerator.  
  
“It’s the truth,” he affirms brusquely, almost bored, glancing at her kitchen clock. “You know it, the Boss knows it. It’s pointless to- what the _fuck_ , Yamamoto!” He stares at her in outrage, dripping half-and-half down his shirt front and hair.  
  
“ _Why_ do you think you can _say_ these things to me,” she cries, slamming down the cream on the counter. “It’s none of your business; you made that perfectly clear you’d rather stay out of my personal life. So stay out of it!”  
  
Gokudera just looks at her, a complicated tangle of emotions fighting for expression. She glares back, feeling defensive and angry. Between them, the air feels charged, and for a second, she wonders if he’s going to retreat behind his homemade explosives, like he used to when they were kids. She thinks she’d almost welcome the destruction and mayhem, if it’ll get him to leave her alone.   
  
Instead, he seems to deflate a little, and wipes his face absently with his pocket square, dropping his eyes and grimacing. When he can talk again, he sounds quiet and almost defeated. “Takako,” he says dully, “you know I care for you.”   
  
The words drop and sink like stones between them. Yamamoto presses her lips together tightly and looks down at her feet.  
  
When he sees that she’s not going to say anything else, he tucks his handkerchief into his pocket, and looks away. “Right,” he says curtly, and leaves. The door snicks shut behind him.  
  
  
  
She doesn’t move in with Ryuuya, and he handles the rejection graciously, though things aren’t quite as easy as they were before. It’s even colder between her and Gokudera though; they’ve stopped talking altogether. There’s nothing for Yamamoto to say; she wants to keep smiling, but as many smiles he’s put on her face, he’s also prompted the most tears. And even though it’s still a shock, skid, thump of the lungs and heart every time she sees him, it gets easier and easier to press, press, press it down, out of need and necessity. She convinces herself it doesn’t hurt when he avoids her gaze, even as she does the same to him.   
  
They still communicate via memos and Ryohei’s long-suffering messengering. Although Gokudera doesn’t say anything to her personally, Yamamoto can tell that when Juliette and the Corbones finally reach an agreement, he’s not fond of the developments. Both of them end up in Tsuna’s office, advising him to ramp up security measures in Libya.   
  
“The Corbones don’t have half as much sense as Fiori did,” Gokudera rants, jabbing at the memo from his insider. “They’ll certainly be finding different measures to run their wares, but they’re also trying to get the line and production running as soon as possible, and that’s going to make them reckless. They’re going to try Libya first, and if we don’t shut them down immediately, those motherfuckers’ll only get cockier.”  
  
“I agree Tsuna,” Yamamoto shrugs. “From what I saw, Juliette has little love for us anyways; she won’t hesitate to stomp on our toes. Plus, now that Mosca’s missing, it’s their perfect window to kick start the operations again.”  
  
Tsuna’s brows crumple together as he considers their advice. “What do you think, Reborn?” he asks tiredly. At the window, the advisor looks at them over his shoulder.   
  
“Your Storm and Rain guardians are in accord, Vongola,” he says simply. “Do what you have to do.”  
  
Tsuna smiles briefly, looking years younger. “That’s true,” he says, pleased. Gokudera and Yamamoto carefully avoid looking at each other. “Alright, let’s increase security in border villages, and call up the ambassador as well, Gokudera. Let him understand why we are doing so, but as usual, don’t tell him too much. Have him understand that his job is simply to keep his own people from interfering too much.”  
  
“It’s done, Boss,” Gokudera agrees, and leaves the office immediately.   
  
Tsuna continues to hold Yamamoto’s gaze steadily. “Do you two need some time apart?” he asks carefully, eyes concerned. She opens her mouth to automatically deny his suggestion, but then thinks back. The silence stretches on a little longer than she intends.  
  
“No, Tsuna,” she finally tells him confidently. “We’re just going through a transition. You’ll see; we’ll be fine!”  
  
  
  
A month later, Yamamoto receives an envelope from Mr. Hagen containing a formal letter of invite to be their official liaison, and, cheekily, a ticket to the Yankees season opener.   
  
The invitation comes as a surprise, and one Yamamoto isn’t sure how to take. Offers like these don’t come to her directly; Tsuna has to have vetted Mr. Hagen’s request, and what Tsuna knows, Gokudera does too. Yamamoto wonders if Gokudera’s finally gotten as sick of dealing with her as she has with him.  
  
Still, she’s hurt and angry when she knocks on Tsuna’s door and lets herself in after a pause. Inside, the sunlight streams in through the wide windows; Kyoko is curled up at the window seat, a pile of dossiers at her side and a Murakami novel in her hands. Tsuna and Reborn are at the desk, bent over and murmuring over a spread of papers. They look up as she approaches, smiling and brandishing the letter.   
  
“Mr. Hagen wants me to liaise,” she laughs brightly. “He sent me Yankee tickets.”  
  
“Yamamoto,” Tsuna greets, looking a little wary, and like he’s uncomfortable with the conversation. “I know. I’ve been in talks with Mr. Hagen about sending a liaison, and I gave him a couple suggestions about who he’d like to work with. Apparently, you made a good impression on him in Italy; he kept asking me if he could have you join him in New York. I told him it’s your decision.”  
  
Yamamoto smiles and cocks her head. “It’s a nice opportunity,” she says mildly. “Good of him to remember me.” Slowly, Kyoko closes her book and watches quietly from her seat.   
  
“He seemed quite taken,” Tsuna admits. “It’s a year-long liaison though. Ah, I didn’t really think it was necessary to offer you as a suggestion. I’d prefer you work closer to home.” He shrugs briefly and smiles crookedly. “But of course, it’s your decision.”  
  
“I see,” Yamamoto says pleasantly, and beams at the occupants in the room blandly. Behind the desk, Tsuna looks a little worried, but Reborn is inscrutable. She nods, and then shakes her head. “Gokudera suggested it, didn’t he?” she asked blandly.   
  
Tsuna splutters, looking flustered and caught. “I, well, I did ask him for opinions, and uh. He, he did, but Yamamoto, I mean, you’re one of many, and Mr. Hagen, he did ask for you as well! Independently!” But Yamamoto just laughs.  
  
“Sorry,” she grins. “I didn’t mean to upset you with that question. I guess it doesn’t matter,” she shrugs cheerfully. “I’ll do it.”  
  
“Takako,” Kyoko protests softly. “Wait a moment.”  
  
Yamamoto is already backing out of the room though, waving back at a miserable looking Tsuna. “I’m going to confirm with Mr. Hagen,” she tells them, “I’ll let you know when we have something finalized!”  
  
“Yamamoto,” Tsuna utters, but she lets his door swing shut on his words.  
  
  
  
“You don’t have to go,” Reborn says. Yamamoto’s on the roof of Namimori, leaning against the railing and wallowing in her loneliness. Well, virtually. Hibari’s napping on top of one of the air conditioning units, but as they’re ignoring each other’s existence, he doesn’t count. Reborn though, is very real, and present. She turns slightly so she can see his sharp profile as he steps up next to her, looking out over their hometown. He’s not changed much since the first days they’ve known each other, as blunt, impatient, and hard to read as always, never a kind word or sentiment that wasn’t mixed with deadly double meaning and bullets. Yamamoto appreciates that he apparently cares enough to come console her, but she’s not sure she wants his sort of kick-in-the-ass tough-love at the moment. “Mr. Hagen understands you’re a longshot—as one of the Vongola’s top associates, it would be perfectly reasonable for you to decline the position. You are needed at home as well,” he points out practically.  
  
“It’s fine,” she replies. “I’ve always wanted to see New York. And,” she adds bitterly, “It’ll be the perfect excuse to break up with my boyfriend.”  
  
He’s quiet for a moment. “That is true,” he says carefully neutral. Yamamoto appreciates that he’s being cautious with her, but it only makes her frustration ratchet up another notch. “Although, sodden-hearted Tsuna would never have that intention, and it was not among my chief concerns.”  
  
“No, not yours,” she agrees. “But I’m sure Gokudera will be satisfied. No more distractions, no more security risks, no more lying. It’s a good thing.”  
  
“Hn,” Reborn says noncommittally. “He’s always had well-defined concerns,” he agrees. Before Yamamoto can say anything, he adds, “But he’s still got a ways to go in learning how to prioritize them. In this case, I believe he’s exacerbating the situation, but I can’t say he’s in the wrong, not exactly. You understand?”  
  
She shrugs, gazing distractedly out over the streets. “I think so.”  
  
“Yamamoto,” Reborn says sharply, waiting until she’s turned reluctantly to her before continuing. “I am only the executor of Vongola’s will, as are you, and all other guardians. And sometimes, we won’t understand what that is, but we try to fulfill it anyhow. You need to understand Tsuna’s will. Whatever else comes in the way needs to be dealt with.”  
  
“I understand, Reborn,” Yamamoto says quietly.   
  
“Do you?” he retorts shrewdly, and leaves, but not before calling over his shoulder, “Talk to Gokudera, Yamamoto. I’ll shoot you both if you don’t.” She watches him disappear through the doorway, then catches Hibari’s eye, who’s sitting up now and watching her stoically. She waves and smiles. He snorts and lays back down for another nap.

 

Despite Reborn’s order, Yamamoto puts it off as long as possible. She calls Ryuuya, because she is a good person, and tells him there is a big chance she’ll be sent on a long-term project to America. It’s unsurprising that he doesn’t take the news well, but there’s more resignation than anger in his responses.  
  
“You globetrotter,” Ryuuya says, sounding weary. “You’re never going to quit and settle down, are you?”  
  
“It’s my job,” she tries unsuccessfully to convince him. “It’s my life.”  
  
“That is unhealthy,” he tells her bluntly, and annoyed, Yamamoto just reminds him of his dissertation.  
  
“Just let me be unreasonable for a moment, Takako,” Ryuuya snaps, unhappily. “I just found out my girlfriend’s leaving me for a strapping blond American bozo with too much hair and muscles.”  
  
“Technically, he’s Irish American,” she replies cheekily and laughs at his shouts of mock outrage. The humor seeps out of their conversation pretty quickly though, and Yamamoto finds herself promising to a serious talk later in the week that she is not at all looking forward to. But, Ryuuya is a good man. She owes him at least a proper farewell.   
  
Then, she sits in her office, at her nice, black lacquered desk and actually reviews the mid-year reports she’s supposed to. She skims through most of them, but reads through the reports on Juliette Benoit-Corbone especially carefully. She’s been reinstated with the Corbones, but is still keeping a significant distance, keeping a low profile with Mr. Mortenson in Aix-en-Provence. Meanwhile, the Libyan border has been unnervingly peaceful; Yamamoto wonders briefly if they were mistaken, that maybe the Corbones aren’t or can’t run the diamond operations anymore; Mosca had bitterly disintegrated much of the existing infrastructures in place since the debacle. Meanwhile, Cato Mosca’s family discreetly sent him into Hong Kong, after a failed attempt on Juliette Benoit-Corbone’s life left the Ciambino family staring down the long guns of both Mortenson’s connections and the Corbone family. As she reads, she fingers the ring Bianchi had given her months ago, and wonders if she should have killed Juliette the last morning of the Gala. She wonders why she couldn’t.  
  
The files dredge up a mild headache. She closes the folders and pushes them away, glances at her watch, and decides to take the afternoon off.   
  
  
  
It is Gokudera who comes to her in the end, as she’s batting baseballs ninety miles per hour towards the back of the batting cages. She sees him before he speaks, but baseball is something she’s been playing since she could walk; her eyes stay focused on the pop-hurtle of the baseball, her hands comfortably gripped around the old, dented bat. The anger though, is present; it runs through her arms and down to her fingers, snaps her hips a little more forcefully, and cracks the next ball into the netting with a vengeance that has bystanders applauding.   
  
“I think that one broke through the netting,” Gokudera comments lightly as she loosens from her stance and rubs the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand.   
  
“It’s okay,” she says with a wan smile. “I’ve been billing damages to company headquarters.”  
  
Clearly, it’s exactly the sort of irritatingly irreverent sort of spending that riles his nerves up right, but he seems to be making an effort; Gokudera coughs, adjusts his cuffs, then jerks his head towards the exit. Quietly, Yamamoto picks her suit jacket up from the bench and swings her purse and shigure kintoki over her shoulder. She leads the way out as Gokudera holds the door open for her, and follows close behind.  
  
It is cold outside, the wind brisk in the quick-fallen evening. Neither of them speaks as Gokudera walks them up a block up and over, to a small quiet coffee shop. Lambo is idling behind the counter, flipping through a magazine when they come in; he straightens up comically fast when he realizes who they are. The café is mostly a front for Vongola shipments, but Tsuna’s hired a decent baker and a barista to give it an apologetically more legitimate status. Neither of the hired employees is here at this hour though, and in fact, the sign at the window is turned to ‘Closed’.  
  
“Hey, kid,” Yamamoto greets with a smile while Gokudera just glares pointedly until Lambo fidgets and stuffs the magazine under the counter. “Table in the back free?”  
  
“ _Si_ , wherever you want,” the teenager waves lazily to the empty shop. “Do you want menus?”  
  
“Espresso, and green tea,” Gokudera orders, shaking out a fresh cigarette as he strides towards the table. Lambo rolls his one-eyed gaze to Yamamoto who shrugs.   
  
“Garlic toast, and a mont blanc,” she adds with a wry grin as she follows. Lambo, looking very put-upon and tragic, hauls himself out of his chair to plate their orders.  
  
The café is amber lit, with soft French café music piping in overhead, warm and mellow in contrast to the cold outside. Their table sits in the inside corner of the restaurant, away from windows and doorways, with a clear lookout at the main door and down the back exit. Gokudera nudges the potted plant a little further away from their view before taking his seat in the rust-red booth. He looks tense and a little pinched; the stress of his job has lined his forehead and the corners of his mouth with permanent furrows, and simple weariness shadows his cheeks and under-eyes. The faint growth of stubble is just visible in the low light, and in spite of everything that has transpired, Yamamoto still wishes she could hold his face in her hands and kiss him until everything smoothes into carefree contentedness. He catches her staring and scowls faintly, motioning for her to sit.   
  
“Tenth told me you saw him about Hagen’s proposal,” he says bluntly. The cigarette trails pungent smoke to the ceiling as it dangles from his fingers. “I meant to speak to you about it, before he contacted you.” His lips twist wryly. “I guess we know he genuinely likes you.”  
  
“I don’t know why you’re telling me this now,” she retorts mildly, carefully taking her seat. “I’ve decided to take the offer anyways.”  
  
For a moment, Gokudera’s face freezes. She can’t quite parse out the expression; he coughs and takes another drag, a little jerkily, and whatever was on his face is hidden away. The silence lasts as Lambo clacks down their order and hastily beats a retreat back to his counter. Then, Gokudera shrugs, his eyebrows drawing together slightly.   
  
“It’s your decision,” he agrees testily. “I’m sure Mr. Hagen’s family will be pleased.”  
  
“Just doing my part,” Yamamoto replies evenly, and delicately forks the candied chestnut on top of her cake. “Besides, I’ll get to live in New York, meet new people, see new places. Get out of your hair,” she adds with a bland smile.   
  
It must be the wrong thing to say because Gokudera brings down his espresso cup with a loud crack against the table. Yamamoto blinks. He’s thin-lipped and drawn, the skin tight around his flashing green eyes.   
  
“Dammit, Yamamoto,” he snaps. “Will you stop that?”  
  
“What?” she utters, honestly bewildered, frantically running through the last five seconds of the conversation.   
  
He looses a breath of frustration and rakes back his hair, glaring. “You,” he accuses, “say these things, like they aren’t important. Like you can shrug it off with a fucking smile and song. Do you understand how so fucking frustrating that is?”  
  
“You’re complaining about my good attitude?” she replies with a hint of incredulous sarcasm. “It’s nothing new, Gokudera,” she laughingly adds. “Nothing you haven’t known since junior high.”  
  
His hand flashes forward and grips her wrist tightly, pinning her hand and fork to the tabletop. “I’ve always known what an idiot you could be,” he snarls. “But you’ve also never given any fucking indication of what you fucking _feel_ , you just cram it behind that stupid smile. I may run away from myself, but you dismiss yourself altogether, and it pisses everyone off because no one knows how you really feel, for _fuck’s_ sake.”  
  
“Everyone knows how I feel, Gokudera!” Yamamoto cries, half laughing, half hysterical. “Everyone’s known for ten years how I felt for you. It was no secret!”  
  
“But you never acted,” Gokudera pointed out, strangely calm. “You never said a word to deny or confirm those rumors.”  
  
“This is my fault then?” Yamamoto asks, dangerously even.   
  
Across the table from her, he looks at her, trying to be evasive but mostly looking lost. There’s a hint of resentment and defensiveness to the set of his shoulders and clench of his jaw. “I never thought you were serious,” he finally admits, with the reluctance that peels back a stingy vulnerability. “You treat everyone the same.”  
  
“But I stuck with you,” Yamamoto protests, her head in her hands. “I followed you, Gokudera.”  
  
“I didn’t understand why, okay?” he snaps defensively; Yamamoto recognizes the high, hair-trigger edge in his tone. “Fuck, Yamamoto,” he sighs, raking his hair nervously as their gaze breaks and she drops her face into her hands, suddenly sick of it all.   
  
“What do you want, Gokudera?” she mumbles from behind her fingers. “I’ve asked you a thousand times already, and I’m tired of it.” She looks up at the end of her sentence, trying to hold his gaze, but his green eyes slip, slip, slip. He focuses just right of her face, but never directly eye-to-eye.  
  
“We can’t be partners anymore,” he says flatly, and even as Yamamoto had been waiting for that admittance, it still hurts to hear him say it out loud. “We can’t be anymore. I want you,” he confesses, and looks utterly wrecked as he finally meets her eyes.   
  
The silence between them is deafening; Yamamoto isn’t breathing.   
  
“What are you-” she manages, and from far-away, she thinks she sounds a little hysterical. “Gokudera, don’t play with me.”  
  
“I’m not,” he snaps, nervously lighting up another cigarette. “I- Yamamoto, it’s…” he looks frustrated and high-strung, gesturing sharply so that cigarette embers fly into ash. “You had a point, okay? I took you for granted, I admit it. I should have trusted you, and I- I did, but I just forgot about what that meant.” He looks away, then back to his hands. “I was scared,” he tells her quietly. “I wanted you by my side, but I didn’t want to think about why. And in the process,” he hesitates, his voice going quieter. “In the process, I ruined a good thing.”   
  
The moment she understands him, it feels like—not a catharsis, but something smaller, _realer_. Yamamoto’s throat feels tight as she tries to sift through the correct response. “Thank you,” she croaks hoarsely. He looks up at her cautiously, and seems slightly heartened by her expression.  
  
“It’s why I suggested you to Mr. Hagen,” he confesses. “I think- I think I. We still need time to- to sort this out. I need to learn to live without you, and,” he swallows, gritting his teeth, “you could do with time away from me.”  
  
For a hanging, impossible moment, Yamamoto thinks that his confession just shattered her world. Then, she realizes that’s because it is literally shattering, as the roaring chatter of machine guns rip over their heads, shards of glass from the window blasting into them.   
  
“ _Yamamoto_!” Gokudera shouts sharply, conversation forgotten as a decade of training kicks in and he reaches forward to yank her down. She drops into him, eases the spare Beretta from his holster and is firing off shots in one, smooth movement. From her angle, she can see the tip of Lambo’s horns quivering behind the counter as he aims his Derringer wildly over his head. There is no end to the ping zip roaring of bullets, and Gokudera jerks his chin, shoving her as they crawl as fast as possible to the back hallway.   
  
“Get Lambo, get out!” he orders, and she nods, waiting for Lambo to slither within reach before hauling him forward on his belly. She spares a glance back as they reach the back entrance, in time to see Gokudera rip out the pin of some custom built grenade with his teeth and fling it over his shoulder out the window.  
  
“Gotta hustle,” she laughs breathlessly to Lambo, grinning at his terrified expression as she practically punts him out the doorway.   
  
“I swear I never said a word about this place to anyone,” Lambo wavers, stumbling down the alley as the explosion shakes the ground and air around them.  
  
“It’s okay, kid,” Yamamoto says, loping after him. “We’ll figure it out later.”  
  
The trashcans lining the alley have spilled and tumbled from the force of Gokudera’s bomb, and Yamamoto and Lambo have to jump over and skirt the spilt garbage as they run for a main street.  
  
“Split up,” she instructs as they come to a side street. “Take a taxi to Namimori and stay with Hibari for a couple hours,” she says, ignoring his squawk of protest. “I’ll see you in a bit.”  
  
“Wait, Ms. Yamamoto!” Lambo shouts, but it’s too late.   
  
She bolts in her chosen direction, but reels back when a black sedan jumps the curb and nearly t-bones her. There’s another screech of tires from behind, and faintly, Lambo yelping in surprise.  
  
“Lambo, run!” She twists around, already half-way into a roundhouse kick, arm reaching over her shoulder for shigure kintoki. Her heel makes contact with an oncoming thug’s cheek; she feels the bone crack under her shoes as her hand closes over the worn handle of her sword, but her arm is seized from behind, and another arm wrestles around her torso like a vice. Yamamoto shouts, flails, and jams her elbow back, throws her weight forward and stabs down with her heeled shoes, but something cracks over the top of her head, and the last thing she sees before her world explodes in a bright painful burst to darkness, is Gokudera’s stark-white face as he catches sight of her.  
  
  
  
The moment of awaking is excruciating. Yamamoto comes aware in increments, the dull throbbing pain in her head defining the moment she crosses into wakefulness. She can’t help the groan that slips from her throat, and it’s only in the brief silence afterwards that she realizes the background shuffling has gone quiet. Stilling, she assesses her situation; her ankles are zip-tied together, as are her wrists. She’s sitting in a metal folding chair. She badly needs a drink of water. There’s the scraping of a chair being brought around, and then sharp screeching as it’s kicked into position.   
  
“Hello, Vongola,” someone says, and Yamamoto raises her head reluctantly. The man straddling the chair grins at her manically. He’s dressed in a completely seasonally inappropriate seersucker suit, fashionably slim, with the hem of his pants over his red-socked ankles. His hair is longish and blond, tied back in a neat, low ponytail, and there’s just enough scruff on his chin to be attractively rugged rather than grungy. His eyes are blue and friendly.   
  
“Jacques,” Yamamoto manages, perplexed. “What…”  
  
“You remember me,” he says, pleased. “That’s good. We can save a little time.”  
  
She stays silent, watching in increasing confusion as Juliette’s errant nephew snaps his fingers and one of those strong, silent types walks up behind Yamamoto and shoves her chair forward roughly. She eyes the bulky shape of his holster, the combat knife at his waist, and decides that the corded muscles in his arms clearly show he knows how to use both.  
  
Jacques is studying his nails as he tells her, “You owe me and my family a chest full of blood diamonds.” And he looks up, blue eyes sparkling.  
  
 _The last shoe drops_ , Yamamoto thinks, stunned. We didn’t anticipate this at all. “Shouldn’t you be talking to Juliette about this?” she asks, blinking. “She dropped them in the first place.”  
  
“Who is to say we haven’t? But no matter, Vongola. That is not your concern, _non_?”   
  
Ah, she thinks wryly. Mr. Mortenson must be very good at his job; whatever he’s said to Jacques has convinced him to effectively declare war on the Vongola.   
  
“It is when you begin unprovoked attacks on tangential Mafiosi,” she laughs, despite the aching throb that accompanies the action. “I must say, Jacques, this is unexpected.”  
  
“I like the element of surprise,” he says agreeably.   
  
“You seemed like such chicken shit when I met you,” Yamamoto continues fondly, smiling. “I guess you must be a great actor, huh?” She laughs, even as the smile drops from his face. His eyes flicker up, and Yamamoto bites back a flinch as the thug behind her deals a sharp blow across her face.  
  
“My family has pinpointed your meddling as the source of our financial loss,” Jacques says coldly, all signs of play gone from his demeanor. Yamamoto’s a little disappointed at how fast he lost his patience. “Tell me, Rain Guardian, are you worth fifty-seven million euros to your famiglia? Because if you aren’t, then we have no reason for keeping you alive.”  
  
Yamamoto giggles, feeling a little madly out of control. The pain in her head, the aching numbness in her limbs are distracting, but she’s suffered worse, and it’s shocking how many people forget that. “Oh little boy,” she says, “You must wonder why you are here handling this great big assignment, instead of someone more qualified, don’t you?”  
  
Jacques stiffens, opens his mouth to retort, but is cut off when Yamamoto slams her weight back into the thug. Her hands scrabble for the handle of his combat knife, managing to yank it from its sheath as he throws her off. The chair hampers her efforts to fall in any sort of painless position; she lands badly on her side and can feel the hard concrete scrape a good layer off her cheek and her shoulder jar painfully against the floor. It’s momentary discomfort, she thinks, and slices through her bonds. The thug is stalking forward again, yanking the chair upright, and it’s then that Yamamoto whips her arm around and slices through his windpipe. As he falls away clutching his throat, she hurriedly cuts through her ankle bindings. There’s just enough warning from the jerk of movement in the corner of her vision that gives her time to duck as bullets rip through the air, aimed at her. Jacques has a Glock, and is calmly trying to put a hole through her as she hoists the now-dead thug up as shield and scrambles for cover. In the back, she can year the metal doors roll open and more men pouring in.  
  
“You could have been patient, Vongola. But now you’ve just made me angry,” he says dispassionately, and she snorts from where she’s stuffed herself behind an ancient metal desk.   
  
“It seems like my lot in life,” she sings back, yanks the dead thug’s gun from his holster, and returns fire. While Jacques is occupied, she sprints out from her corner. “Explain to me this, Jacques,” she yells conversationally as she spots shigure kintoki propped up in the corner and makes for it. “Why did you pick me? Was it because you missed me?” The blade swings from its sheath as the first of the goons reach her, and then she's fighting, the sword a flashing, heavy weight that cuts and stabs and whirls about her. There are so many of them though, and while Jacques is the only one using his gun, it doesn’t make the fight any less dangerous. She ducks a lead pipe and lunges forward to slash the attacker’s kneecaps, dodges as someone swings forward with a machete and doesn’t wince when the blade cuts into another attacker behind. Spinning, she slams her elbow into a tall, black-haired man’s guts then rams the hilt of her sword up someone’s nose. Her luck runs out when a wiry man’s blackjack catches her across the temple. The crack across her face sends bursts of stars through her vision and she stumbles, enough time for someone to put her in a stranglehold. Jacques claps sardonically from where he’s still leaned up against an old table.  
  
“You are among the weaker long-range fighters of your famiglia,” he answers, picking up her question as if no time had passed. The smugness to his tone speaks volumes of his young enthusiasm. “Your main strengths lie in swordsmanship, and your shooting skills are only good at best. You are easiest to take in safely.”  
  
Yamamoto laughs because she almost feels sorry for him, in the way that she does for anyone who underestimates her; that is, not very much. “One or two valid points,” she concedes, rasping and trying not to struggle against the hold. Jacques has come to stand before her, gun sighted down to her forehead, comfortably out of distance of her reach.   
  
“ _Adieu_ , Mademoiselle Takako,” Jacques declares with a bit of a grim flourish. Yamamoto grins up at him, bleeding and tired. She waves at him, wriggling her fingers, and depresses the catch of the ring on her finger. The poison needle flies with unerring accuracy; Jacques cries out in shock and pain as it hits his left eye. His hand comes up to clap at his face; one last shot bangs out with a final, damning reverb, and as he collapses to the floor, half of his head missing. Taking advantage of her captor’s surprise, she wrenches his arm down and hurls him over her shoulder. Shigure kintoki pins him to the ground through his chest briefly before he even has the chance to shout, and finally, Yamamoto is treated to the extremely welcome sight of Gokudera already running towards her, his gun still smoking in his hand.  
  
“Gokudera,” she utters with a grin that turns into a yelp as he gathers her roughly into his arms, tightly crushing her against him.   
  
“Stupid idiot,” he’s muttering into her hair, the slight waver in his tone audible as their Vongola associates fill the warehouse. “You stupid fucking moron.”  
  
Yamamoto feels a little bit like crying but finds herself laughing breathlessly instead.  
  
  
  
  
  
 **seven months later**  
  
New York is loud, and cold, and exhilaratingly alive. Yamamoto’s hands are wrapped around a mug of hot, strong coffee as she stands at her window. Her apartment building is just high enough to peek over the next building across, and she can glimpse the spread of Central Park just beyond. Faintly, the sounds of the city are audible from below; taxis and pedestrian, the occasional rumble of over ground tracks make its way past her window glass. In the months she’s been here, the twilight hour is still her favorite time in the city. When she first arrived, disoriented and homesick and still aching from the twenty hours of flight, the sight of her own corner of Manhattan, complete with florist, deli, and grocers all shaded orange purple from the setting sun had convinced her to at least spend the night, instead of finding the next flight home. Those first days were difficult; her English was poor, barely passable then. And the final settlements with the Corbone family were being pounded out, which necessitated Gokudera moving to Nice for two months. While Yamamoto began preparing for her new duties in New York, he had been largely absent and although she doesn’t need him, per se, it’s been half a year since they’ve had more than a telephone conversation. It is a fine way, Haru tells her often, to start a relationship. Smiling a little wryly, Yamamoto sips her coffee and watches as the lights begin to flicker on across the street.   
  
“…Takako? Can you still hear me?”  
  
“Yes, Mr.Hagen,” she calls, trusting her speakerphone to pick up her voice. Nevertheless, she leaves the window and folds onto the couch, closer to her handset. “Will you need me to accompany you to the Donnelly meet?”  
  
“Not tonight, Takako,” Mr. Hagen replies, a hint of warmth in his tone. “No, tonight it’s just me and an old friend having drinks. You young people needn’t be forced to spend this lovely night with us old gossips.”  
  
“Aw, Mr. Hagen,” Yamamoto laughs. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re very young at heart, at least.”  
  
“Thank you,” he says dryly. “Point being, take the rest of the evening off; I’ll see you tomorrow at the house. Lucky will be by at ten to pick you up. If you’ll bring the Capellini folder with you?”  
  
“Already in my purse,” she assures. “Have a good evening, Mr. Hagen.”  
  
“You too, Takako. See you tomorrow.”  
  
She hangs up, and pushes the coffee away, wondering if it is too late to head down to Broadway and catch a musical. Outside, the fast-falling night is chilly though, and the weather forecast predicts the first snowfall of the year anytime this week. Yamamoto decides it might be a better plan all around if she were to just cross the street for curry take out and go through the second batch of DVDs she’d borrowed from the capo’s daughter. She’s rifling through her closet for her boots (ugly but weatherproof and warm that she’d bought guiltily at Marshall’s, thinking on Bianchi’s genteelly horrified look) when her cellphone starts a loud growling purr. Grinning, she grabs her left boot with one hand, and answers her call with the other.   
  
“Gokudera,” she says happily. “Early morning?”  
  
The snort on the other end is faint. “Hardly,” he drawls. “Where are you?”   
  
Yamamoto shoves her feet into her boots, and then winds the thick blue scarf Kyoko had knit for her last year around her neck. “Me? At home, about to grab dinner, spend my evening with a very handsome man.”  
  
“What,” Gokudera says flatly.  
  
“Yup,” she continues cheerfully. “You might know him. Blond, beautiful, goes by the name Dark Knight in some circles…”  
  
“You do know that your job is precisely what puts Bruce Wayne in that fucking cowl and cape, right?”  
  
Yamamoto laughs and shifts as she grabs her keys and wallet. “Then it’s a good thing he’s not real. What are you doing?” she asks, fumbling with the lock of her apartment.   
  
“Nothing important,” he says dismissively. “Just standing outside some moron’s door.”  
  
“Why?” Yamamoto asks, but her voice dies as she swings open her door. Gokudera lifts an eyebrow at her and calmly snaps his phone shut. His silver-gray hair is windblown and somewhat shorter since the last time they met, and the collar of his pea coat is turned up against the wind. Faint dots of precipitation spot the lenses of his glasses, but the sharp green eyes behind them are clear as ever.  
  
“Pure coincidence,” he says, a smug smirk tugging at his lips as Yamamoto gapes. “What, surprised to see me?”  
  
She shrieks, and Gokudera has no warning before he’s staggering back into the hallway, his arms full of Yamamoto.   
  
“Get off me, you freakishly huge moron!” he protests, but can’t help laughing as Yamamoto kisses his face and hair joyfully, legs wrapped around his waist and hands framing his face.   
  
“ _You’re here_!” Yamamoto shouts joyfully, and when Mrs. Barrow sticks her head out into the hall to see the commotion, she points at Gokudera. “My boyfriend’s come to see me!”  
  
“How lovely,” Mrs. Barrow agrees kindly, gazing on Gokudera intently. “I’m so happy for you; you do rarely get visitors.” Yamamoto laughs and burrows her nose in Gokudera’s hair happily, uncaring that by tomorrow morning, everyone in the building will know about her mysterious foreigner boyfriend.  
  
“Good evening,” Gokudera grunts to her neighbor as he staggers through the door, clearly having given up on disentangling Yamamoto and trying to balance their combined weight instead. “So much for stealth,” he grumbles as he collapses onto the couch, Yamamoto still straddling him. He gives her a look. “You’re completely unbecoming for a Vongola associate.”  
  
“I missed you so much,” Yamamoto replies cheerfully, settling her arms around his neck. “Are you here on business? Is Tsuna here? How long are you staying?”  
  
“Of course I’m here on business; you can’t think I’d leave the Tenth’s side just to see you,” he snaps back, but Yamamoto is close enough to both see and lick the flush of red climbing up the side of his neck. She giggles and burrows closer, ignoring his half-hearted shoves. “Oh come on—at least let me get my coat off,” he says, exasperated, and Yamamoto sits up, shoves the dark gray coat off his shoulders and rewinds her arms about him, hands sneaking under his sweater and shirt to lay warm and bare against his skin. “Perve,” he mutters, shaking off his sleeves before loosely circling her waist.   
  
“You were being so mean this week,” she laughs from her position tucked under his chin. “I nearly cried!”  
  
“Shut up,” Gokudera rolls his eyes. “There’s no need for dramatics. And I had to work over time for the past month in order to leave things perfectly in place for the next week while I’m gone.”  
  
“An entire week!” Yamamoto echoes, thrilled. She sits up, grinning. “I’m going to take the rest of it off too!”  
  
“No you don’t,” he replies sharply. “I’m meeting with Mr. Hagen and the don tomorrow afternoon; you need to be there to fill me in on the latest.”  
  
“Mr. Hagen knew you were coming!” she says instead, “And he didn’t tell me!”  
  
One hand comes up to rap sharply on her head. “That,” he deadpans. “Is the point of a surprise.”  
  
The smile on her face feels like it can’t stretch any wider as Gokudera looks both pleased and a little uncomfortable, his eyes slipping away with mild embarrassment. “You are just so fucking cute,” she tells him, delighted. “You’re a complete romantic at heart!”  
  
“Am not!” he growls, affronted, but Yamamoto just presses her mouth to his, sweet and fierce and giddy until he stops pouting and kisses her back. They’re both slightly short of breath by the time they break for air, and the flush has crawled high to stain Gokudera’s cheekbones. His irises are blown wide and dark.  
  
“I was going to ask if you had dinner yet,” he manages, a slight rasp to his tone.   
  
Yamamoto beams, and without looking, reaches unerringly behind her and grabs the stack of delivery menus off the tabletop. “We don’t even need to leave the bedroom!” she tells him gleefully.   
  
He glares back. “You’re certainly optimistic,” he sneers, but Yamamoto leers back.   
  
“I may not be the best looking guy in here, but hey, I’m the only one talking to you,” she drawls in a terrible Brooklyn accent, and Gokudera bursts out laughing in horrified amusement. He plucks the brochures from her hands and drops them behind him before standing them up and walking her backwards towards the bedroom.   
  
“Or, we could just eat the rest of my ramen,” Yamamoto sings happily, winding her arms around his neck as they stumble through the door.  
  
“Time to shut up, Baseball Freak,” Gokudera announces, and kicks the door shut behind.

**Author's Note:**

> I love getting comments, and constructive criticism is always welcome.


End file.
